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Author Topic: The TF2 Thread  (Read 248032 times)

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Kayin

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3360 on: May 07, 2010, 06:43:43 PM »

^^^^

The problem isn't any class is too good, the problem is that other classes are not good enough. Sniper and Medic are fine, but the rest of the classes are lacking in some way. Valve's whole emphesis on the poofer is BECAUSE it gives a skill to the pyro that is harder to master. The problem is that the whole methodology is wrong because the poofer and other changes are not in line with the roll of the pyro. The Heavy changes are kinda 'eh' too, because while they make the Heavy better, it doesn't really enable one heavy to appear better than another heavy. In fact, it makes bad Heavies look more like good Heavies.

I don't mind as long as the other classes are playable and theres a good amount of options you can get away with but there is a LOT of room for improvement and Valve seems to miss the the ball here. Though honestly I've put a lot of thought into this due to game design nerdiery and it's really really hard to change that skill ceiling without really changing the class.... but they really could do a lot better.
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Mongrel

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3361 on: May 07, 2010, 06:48:45 PM »

One of the things I keep thinking about the recent Pyro changes is that there's a good possibility that they started out as a very very very soft nerf against soldiers and demos.

Only when the update was just a straight poofer buff in playtesting, the pyro became seen as "too strong", so then they said "so what can we take away to balance this a bit?"... except they massively overcorrected.
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Catloaf

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3362 on: May 07, 2010, 07:05:03 PM »

There's a difference between a 'skill ceiling' and a learning curve.  In general, I haven't seen any noobs learn to be good with any class, especially the not Soldier and Demoman.
I see people who are doing the crazy 'skill' shit with soldiers and Demomen (poppin' em up and blastin' em as soldier, etc.) who still make noob mistakes on basic shit (trying to rocket a scout at mid-range).

The reason no one thinks the Pyro requires skill is that he has no special movement gimmick like the other fast-paced attack/defend classes.  It required skill to know when to light someone up and fuck off to let them die/heal up and come back to be killed by your teammates.  It requires skill to predict someone's path enough to flare them then ambush them with the axetinguisher before they go out.

You can say the Soldiers and Demomen have high ceilings, but they still take less skill to kill people (from a distance), survive, and move on to cap a point.  They needed the nerf, not the pyro.
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Kayin

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3363 on: May 07, 2010, 07:11:45 PM »

The reason no one thinks the Pyro requires skill is that he has no special movement gimmick like the other fast-paced attack/defend classes.  It required skill to know when to light someone up and fuck off to let them die/heal up and come back to be killed by your teammates.  It requires skill to predict someone's path enough to flare them then ambush them with the axetinguisher before they go out.

Thats not exactly a 'skill'.
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Makaris

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3364 on: May 07, 2010, 07:34:12 PM »

Yes, I agree with yah Kayin.  If anything, I'd like to see the 'bad' classes be more like the Soldier than see the Soldier touched with a nerf.  Maybe the Soldier could afford to have some more situations that give him pause or force him to reassess the situation more cautiously, but that would best be done by making the classes he is competing with for a slot on the team more... competitive.

There's a difference between a 'skill ceiling' and a learning curve.  In general, I haven't seen any noobs learn to be good with any class, especially the not Soldier and Demoman.
I see people who are doing the crazy 'skill' shit with soldiers and Demomen (poppin' em up and blastin' em as soldier, etc.) who still make noob mistakes on basic shit (trying to rocket a scout at mid-range).

The reason no one thinks the Pyro requires skill is that he has no special movement gimmick like the other fast-paced attack/defend classes.  It required skill to know when to light someone up and fuck off to let them die/heal up and come back to be killed by your teammates.  It requires skill to predict someone's path enough to flare them then ambush them with the axetinguisher before they go out.

You can say the Soldiers and Demomen have high ceilings, but they still take less skill to kill people (from a distance), survive, and move on to cap a point.  They needed the nerf, not the pyro.

Well, yeah.  Soldier [wouldn't say Demo so much, as pills are harder to manage than rockets] takes less skill to kill someone than a Pryo does, assuming we aren't talking about two TOTAL nublets.... that isn't saying much.  We already knew the Pryo to be underpowered.  I mean, the Pyro has, altogether; a shallow learning curve, a low skill ceiling, and weak overall performance.  That is a terrible combination.  What the Pryo needs is tools to raise his skill ceiling and make him a more robust character.  But like Kayin said, this will be probably pretty hard without a rather large character overhaul.

Basically, I don't think any nerfs are in order for the good classes right now.  Nerfs just upset people, cause drama, and rarely address any real issues.  What the game needs are a bunch of well thought out buffs for the more underused classes; Heavy, Pyro and Engineer.  Buffs are positive things that people rarely get upset over.

Spy is such a strange case, being both hard to master, luck-based but with a capacity to really swing a game if he does it right... that I would say he doesn't need any changes.

Thats not exactly a 'skill'.

Which part, because a few of things he mentioned are certainly skillful, like leading your target.  Ambushing on the other hand is more luck than skill.
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Mongrel

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3365 on: May 07, 2010, 07:49:08 PM »

I agree with Makaris, though I must say that I think Heavy is fine right now, with the recent buff. More people just need to go back to trying him out again. And Engie is going to get an update soon.

So it's just Pyro who's out on that limb.

I think the game is definitely at it's best when there's a large diversity of classes though. I like to see things in each class that give people a chance to play them.

Also, one more thing: I agree that I generlaly prefer to buff than to nerf, but eventually power creep all round will distort the game (for example, the general increase in overall damage capabilities of many of the classes has led to a decrease in the importance of the different HP point totals.. sure you could solve this by increasing everyone's HP, but what a mess!).
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NexAdruin

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3366 on: May 07, 2010, 07:59:26 PM »

I think it would have been a lot better if fire had dropped to... 90% instead of 80%. And making flames go away quicker was dumb.
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Makaris

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3367 on: May 07, 2010, 08:12:02 PM »

[Post has been heavily editted in last 10 minutes]

Me?  Honestly?  I'd do a number of things.

- Increase the Pyro's base speed to Medic levels.
- Increase fire contact damage to more than pre-patch levels.
- Return the old afterburn, make make it so that medics healing burning people don't charge uber.
- Tighten the flame so that it does damage more consistently (less damage particles wandering off harmlessly), but also rewards good aim.  I recommend this change for Heavy, too.  
- Bring back the old poof, and get rid of the mini crits. Teammates shouldn't suffer because they have a bad soldier on their team.  Make it cost no ammo and push stickies father, too.
- In lieu of adding yet another unlock, make the poof launch the Pyro like the FAN (maybe even a bit more the FAN, giving him like 2.5 jumps worth of height).
- Backburner increases your health to 225, and has a wider arc for crits.

Possible changes;
- Pyro runs slower while using the flame, maybe Demo-man speeds or something.  

------

There, nice well rounded Pyro buff.  Tightening the cone of fire is especially important.  It would do a number of things.
- Counter Ubers even better, as now the Pryo can also stall them in addition to separating the patient from the doc, which in a serious competitive match is a big friggin deal.
- He becomes a real threat in CQC, which he should have been all along.  The Pyro should be the class you LEAST want to run into when you round a corner, rather than "shoot rockets at feet, shoot over there, now what."
- Aim is actually a needed skill, so a total nubby 'W+M1 Pyro' (damn that term is overused) cannot reap the full benefits of the class, and has room to grow.
- Old Poofer is harder to use, yes.  But it's a skill ability that really aid your team.  However, since it requires so much of your attention to do properly, I say it shouldn't cost you ammo to do (not that running out of ammo was ever a real issue).  And pushing stickies farther is something it should have been doing all along.  Right now, it takes like 3-4 puffs to move the stickies any decent distance at all.
- FAN jump has been suggested a million times.  I'm not a fan of releasing ANOTHER unlock (even if a jet pack would be sweet).  Would give Pyro need avenues of attack, which he deserves.
- Lowering the Pyro's movement speed on the attack might be necessary, but probably wouldn't be.
- Backburner buff because COME ON.
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Defenseless Cow

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3368 on: May 07, 2010, 08:16:13 PM »

When I play soldier, my mindset is basically, "shoot rockets in general direction of dudes/where dudes are going to land." It's not like my aim is crazy good or anything. Thats why I use the default RL.

Actually I... don't really know why I do so well with soldier.

The problem with the pyro is that he was built to be an ambush class, but lacked the mobility to ambush well. They gave him the airblast to make him more "useful", but that just ended up totally changing how his class worked. And now he's basically the poofman.

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bloogablooga

Bleck

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3369 on: May 07, 2010, 08:18:24 PM »

- Bring back the old poof, and get rid of the mini crits.

I'll fucking punch your shit. Don't take away my poofman I love him ever so much.
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Makaris

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3370 on: May 07, 2010, 08:22:22 PM »

When I play soldier, my mindset is basically, "shoot rockets in general direction of dudes/where dudes are going to land." It's not like my aim is crazy good or anything. Thats why I use the default RL.

Actually I... don't really know why I do so well with soldier.

The problem with the pyro is that he was built to be an ambush class, but lacked the mobility to ambush well. They gave him the airblast to make him more "useful", but that just ended up totally changing how his class worked. And now he's basically the poofman.

Because you're a goddamn psychic.  Seriously I was stabbing EVERYONE that round of nucleus and every single death was due to a chance run in with YOU.
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Kayin

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3371 on: May 07, 2010, 09:00:16 PM »

- Bring back the old poof, and get rid of the mini crits.

I'll fucking punch your shit. Don't take away my poofman I love him ever so much.

I both like the mini crits yet also think it's just bad design. TF2 is nice because you can't really hurt your team outside of just being stupid and being ineffectual. Poof allows you to REALLY hurt your team in some situations. I actually did this on accident on Freight the other night. It's not a HUGE issue, but I would definitely prefer if it was a mini crit or only hurt the person who fired it. Hell, maybe even a CRIT, if the poof rate was slow enough.
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NexAdruin

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3372 on: May 07, 2010, 09:06:28 PM »

A bit off topic, but I don't think the Heavy's spread should be tightened. Having a wide spread of bullets is the entire point of the heavy. However, I wouldn't be opposed to a minigun that did a different amount of damage and had a slightly tighter spread.
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Saturn

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3373 on: May 07, 2010, 11:18:46 PM »

Idea, instead of a mini-crit, make the reflected explosive SET PEOPLE IN THE BLAST RADIUS ON FIRE, if they were ALREADY ON FIRE they get mini-critted.


due to how it works you actually DO need to lead your targets with the flamethrower to do maximum damage at times
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patito

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3374 on: May 08, 2010, 04:18:29 AM »

Tell me when relentless spamming of rockets, potatoes and winbombs are nerfed.  And then I'll believe Valve about trying to make the game more skill based.

I assume you are really happy about the new Pyro changes then, since they really make the pyro a great team player that can actually protect his team from endless rocket and grenade spam, something that no other class can do. The way I see it, Valve really is turning the flamethrower into a very defensive weapon, plus the homewrecker being actually useful for something now. The ability to break ubers even if for a short time. Even poofing stickies away. Sure it doesn't play like the class it's supposed to be but then neither does the targe demomen.

If you want to play old style pyro the backburner is there to play exactly the way the pyro was originally conceived. Ambushing being the main tactic to use, so really, if anyone keeps complaining about the damage nerf, I'll just repeat myself go back to the backburner.
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Niku

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3375 on: May 08, 2010, 04:18:39 AM »

- Bring back the old poof, and get rid of the mini crits.

I'll fucking punch your shit. Don't take away my poofman I love him ever so much.

I both like the mini crits yet also think it's just bad design. TF2 is nice because you can't really hurt your team outside of just being stupid and being ineffectual. Poof allows you to REALLY hurt your team in some situations. I actually did this on accident on Freight the other night. It's not a HUGE issue, but I would definitely prefer if it was a mini crit or only hurt the person who fired it. Hell, maybe even a CRIT, if the poof rate was slow enough.

on steel the other day on the weeabootique there were like, five people on E

a soldier fired a rocket straight down the lane at me

ahahahahahahahahahaahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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patito

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3376 on: May 08, 2010, 04:37:23 AM »

Oh god, so many things wrong on makaris post, I don't know where to start.

[Post has been heavily editted in last 10 minutes]

- Return the old afterburn, make make it so that medics healing burning people don't charge uber.
This is a terrible idea, any damage should charge uber, and that's fine, if you take cover as a heavy after taking a couple of rockets you get uber faster, it's just strategy, you put yourself in the line of fire to take a few hits and have your medic charge uber.
- Tighten the flame so that it does damage more consistently (less damage particles wandering off harmlessly), but also rewards good aim.  I recommend this change for Heavy, too.
The cone of fire is fine, making it harder to aim won't make pyro more skillfull to play, in fact it'll make him even less useful, same goes for the minigun, which is great because you can change targets really quickly. And there's already a weapon that can shoot very quickly and requires great aim, it's called a pistol.
- Bring back the old poof, and get rid of the mini crits. Teammates shouldn't suffer because they have a bad soldier on their team.  Make it cost no ammo and push stickies father, too.
I actually like the pyro lowering spam a bit. So uh, I don't know. Making it cost no ammo is the real terrible idea, since you could pretty much go around juggling people for your teammates to kill.  You can do that right now even, but you can't do it forever. I've had great pyros do it to me for quite a while. The fact that they can run out of ammo makes it a little less viable.
- In lieu of adding yet another unlock, make the poof launch the Pyro like the FAN (maybe even a bit more the FAN, giving him like 2.5 jumps worth of height).
I don't understand the obsession with giving the pyro a second jump. Soldiers and Demomen can do it but they have to give up some of their health to accomplish that. Scouts can do it for free, but it's their class gimmick.
- Backburner increases your health to 225, and has a wider arc for crits.
The problem with having that much health was that an overhealed pyro could rush most sentries and kill them, no need to use ubers.
Possible changes;
- Pyro runs slower while using the flame, maybe Demo-man speeds or something. 
And making him slower when actually firing makes your initial suggestion for increased speed pretty much moot
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patito

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3377 on: May 08, 2010, 04:40:21 AM »

Idea, instead of a mini-crit, make the reflected explosive SET PEOPLE IN THE BLAST RADIUS ON FIRE, if they were ALREADY ON FIRE they get mini-critted.


due to how it works you actually DO need to lead your targets with the flamethrower to do maximum damage at times

This is actually a good compromise on the minicrit thing, since being set on fire won't totally destroy you like getting hit with a minicrit rocket.
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Makaris

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3378 on: May 08, 2010, 06:17:42 AM »

I disagree!  Mainly cause I'd rather see the Pyro be a CQC Monster rather than a nebulous supporty class that doesn't really do anything worth filling a class slot for.

Quote
This is a terrible idea, any damage should charge uber, and that's fine, if you take cover as a heavy after taking a couple of rockets you get uber faster, it's just strategy, you put yourself in the line of fire to take a few hits and have your medic charge uber.
- I'd still want the Medic to be able to heal burning individuals, but a semi-decent medic will turn afterburn, which should be a bad thing, into Uber Fuel.  Damage that is dealt on slow and in low volumes is perfect for Medics to handle.  Especially with the afterburn nerf.  Pryo's that like to get into the mix and light up as many people as possible (which from a first-impressions perspective, should be good!) hurts his team a lot should the enemies have a medic.  I'm not particular passionate about this change, but it would give the Pyro a small leg up in his counter-medic utility.

Quote
The cone of fire is fine, making it harder to aim won't make pyro more skillfull to play, in fact it'll make him even less useful, same goes for the minigun, which is great because you can change targets really quickly. And there's already a weapon that can shoot very quickly and requires great aim, it's called a pistol.
- Main issue with the Pyro's current cone of fire is that damage is VERY inconsistent.  Testing shows that it has the potential to take wildly different lengths of time to do the same job, due to damage particles wandering off.  Sometimes, you won't even hit at all. I'd want to have more of those particles travel down the reticule directly, IE tighten it up.

Quote
I actually like the pyro lowering spam a bit. So uh, I don't know. Making it cost no ammo is the real terrible idea, since you could pretty much go around juggling people for your teammates to kill.  You can do that right now even, but you can't do it forever. I've had great pyros do it to me for quite a while. The fact that they can run out of ammo makes it a little less viable.
- I like lowering the spam to, but come on.  One of the basic tenets behind the game is that you can't do harm to your teammates.  Even the most terrible player is at least some HP to soak damage.  But take a bad Soldier and a good Pyro and now there are big, big issues.  And if a Pyro is juggling you forever... shoot him?  I don't think I've ever been juggled more than twice before one of us ended up dead, for whatever reason.

Quote
I don't understand the obsession with giving the pyro a second jump. Soldiers and Demomen can do it but they have to give up some of their health to accomplish that. Scouts can do it for free, but it's their class gimmick.
- Well, the idea is that the Pyro fails at his intended role.  "Intended" meaning a close combat class and not "poofman, pusher of stickies."  I'm not excited about the idea of having an entire new unlock created, there are already too many.  I'd rather see a more well thought out change, but just the small addition of being able to get to new area's to get the drop on people seems worth it.  I mean, come on, are class gimmicks really sacred anymore anyway?  We have x2 Cap Soldiers and Demo's, Close combat Demo's, Tank Spies, and Pyro's that are better at putting out fires than causing them.

Quote
The problem with having that much health was that an overhealed pyro could rush most sentries and kill them, no need to use ubers.
Didn't anticipate that.  Maybe increases the arc for crits would be enough.  Or something else?

Quote
And making him slower when actually firing makes your initial suggestion for increased speed pretty much moot.
- Well, not really.  If the Pyro would FAN Jump and run faster, he'd get into flank position faster.  Once there he would need to time his attack so that he can get as close as possible.  Considering his damage is no longer pathetic (assuming my changes), he should be able to do his job.  But if the opponent catches on and tries to escape, they should be able to do so, too.
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Catloaf

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Re: The TF2 Thread
« Reply #3379 on: May 08, 2010, 09:40:44 AM »

A like Makaris' buff idea, except I'd have the poof be somewhere between the original and now.  Remove the mini-crit, but add a full crit when hitting the player who fired the projectile.

Maybe let the poof be how it is now, but make it have to recharge if used in rapid succession so it can't be spammed.  Sort of like an overheat, but rather a 'low on pressure'.
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